Esayem Wrote:You glamorize Marshall for having one of the greatest sports turnarounds ever, but bash Temple who made an unbelievable turnaround.

I'm not taking anything away from Temple in any way or bashing them Esayem.....but the Marshall story is truely one that overshadows any winning season. I'm a West Virginian and I live in a state where one of the worst tragedies in colllege sports history happened. If you want to look at what these people had to endure and use that tragedy as a comparison to the accomplishment of one winning season by a team who has consistenly underachieved.........then thats your opinion.

If none of you have ever seen this, you might consider renting it sometime. A true story.

Thanks for clearing that up. There's just one thing. We have 37,000 just for the flagship campus, not the system (which is actually 61,000+). We plan to be at 45,000 in six years.

As far as academics go, it should also be noted that Houston is a lot closer to "Tier I" than any other schools on the list. We're pretty much #3 (behind Texas and Texas A&M) for Texas public schools in just about every measure (yes, ahead of Texas Tech) except our freshmen class requirements. We're in the process of changing that now.

Regardless, the real reason why we're so close has to do with new state legislation. The Texas Legislature pretty much understood that both New York and California are much more competitive in education than we are, and we are losing many graduates to out of state schools. In Texas, the main difference between Texas and Texas A&M versus other state schools pretty much boils down to funding. The former schools have access to the Permanent University Fund (PUF), which is a fortune amassed from oil. All other state schools don't have access to this money, but Texas House Bill 51 was enacted this past legislative session which allowed for an amendment to the Texas Constitution to be introduced (Proposition 4). The amendment, which created the National Research University Fund, will allow Houston to really become Tier I.

Check out where we stand for access to the NRUF:

I honestly have absolutely no idea why the University of Houston is considered a Tier 4 school by U.S. News & World Report. There's just not really a justification in terms of academics and research, and there are schools that are considered Tier one on that list that have lower endowments than us.

Sorry for the long-windedness, but it's important for all the right facts to be conveyed here.